Big Crowd at Hearing on Bridgeton Contamination

BRIDGETON, Mo. (AP) - Officials with the Environmental Protection Agency say testing continues at a Cold War-era radioactive site in the St. Louis County town of Bridgeton, more than four years after the agency decided to cap the waste and leave it.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that about 300 residents turned out Thursday for a hearing on the West Lake Landfill. Many urged the EPA to reconsider plans for the site. Others scolded the EPA for its plan to leave the waste buried.

Radioactive waste is spread across 40 acres in two locations of the dump. It is among several sites in the St. Louis region contaminated by radioactive waste from Mallinckrodt Chemical Co.'s uranium processing operations.

Some critics want the waste excavated and taken to a licensed waste disposal facility.